Pax Murphy Bed with Sliding Doors

Materials: Pax Wardrobes and Lyngdal sliding doors

Description: We wanted to make the second bedroom in our condo more multifunctional, and the obvious solution was a Murphy bed.

We spoke to some of the local suppliers, and a basic Murphy bed with no additional storage space would have been at least $3,500. That’s a little steep, and we didn’t really like the style of any of them.

I’d seen two IKEA hacks that used Pax cabinets with a Murphy bed kit here and here.

I used those as inspiration, but switched to sliding doors instead of bifolds.

We waited until Ikea had a Bedroom event. We bought the Pax stuff, got $150 gift card back, and then used that to buy the lighting. I was also able to scavenge some underutilized shelves and drawers from a few of the other Pax wardrobes we have.

Total Width: approx. 372cm (10′-1″)

From start to finish the project took about 1 week – that was one solid Saturday of work, with everything else done in the evenings.

For the most part all of the work was done by one person, but there were a few steps were a second set of hands was needed: initially assembling the Pax wardrobes; lifting the top piece into place; and lifting the doors onto the rails.

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Jules Yap "I am Jules, the engine behind IKEAHackers and the one who keeps this site up and running. My mission is to capture all the wonderful, inspiring, clever hacks and ideas for our much loved IKEA items".

22 Responses to Pax Murphy Bed with Sliding Doors

As an FYI, we sell this frame, with free shipping to anywhere in the lower 48 states. you can find it on our website, at murphybeddepot.com, or give us a call, toll-free, at (866)844-9255, and we’d love to help any DIY Murphy Bed / Wall Bed enthusiast save some space and transform any room with a Next Bed, Panel Bed, or other Murphy Bed kit.

Just wanted to see if you still enjoy the Next Bed now that you’ve had it awhile and find it comfortable.

Also, I have a large antique headboard I’d like to use mounted on the wall behind the Next Bed. Is there an reason you see that it wouldn’t work? From everything I see is seems like it would be no problem.

Also #2, for the space at the head of the bed where there’s a gap…would it work to slip 1 or 2 pieces of very firm foam in that gap once the bed is open?

Is there any chance you could use a king sized mattress in this arrangement? We’ve just decided to do this in our basement level guest bedroom. We already have a king size bed there and would like to keep it but the room would be so much more useful if we had a murphy bed.

Murphy beds are so practical and seem to becoming a lot more popular, especially in apartments, condos and studios. I assembled a queen-size BredaBed for my parents-in-law who live in a small apartment. Very convenient!!

This is so retro! I haven’t seen a Murphy bed in forever. I lived in several small studios in NYC and Jersey City during the 90s and Murphy beds never dawned on me. I only wish now I had remembered them then. I was thinking, If you didn’t have sliding doors, you could push the bed up and leave it as is. The underside showing (during a party) might make for a great conversation piece. Or put some nails in the bottom frame and hang art temporarily. Great ikeahack.

It gets pressed flat against the wall, so it hasn’t really been a problem? It might need to be smoothed out a bit when the bed is pulled down, but nothing major.

We don’t fold the pillows up, though. We have a 12″ mattress with a mattress pad, which we just reused from our old bed. With a shallower mattress you might be able to fold the pillows up, but with our gigantic mattress they either have to be tucked down on the sides, or pulled off and put in the storage.

This is actually for his second bedroom, so I don’t think getting to his clothes is an issue (I’m assuming that it’s basically a guest bed). Also, it wouldn’t take more than a few seconds to put the bed up and get to your clothes, so I don’t think it would be a problem for whoever is using the room.

@K M Story, I certainly could see it as an issue if someone was still sleeping in the bed. Making sure you have clothes out for the next day would be a necessity if it was the main bedroom and one was part of a couple.

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